ITALIAN 101:Italy: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Renowned for its rich cultural tradition, Italy is also one of the most problematic nations in Europe. This course explores the contradictions at the heart of Italy by examining how art and literature provide a unique perspective onto modern Italian history. We will focus on key phenomena that contribute both positively and negatively to the complex "spirit" of Italy, such as the presence of the past, political realism and idealism, revolution, corruption, decadence, war, immigration, and crises of all kinds. Through the study of historical and literary texts, films, and news media, the course seeks to understand Italy's current place in Europe and its future trajectory by looking to its past as a point of comparison. Taught in English.

ITALIC 93:Immersion in the Arts: Living in Culture, Challenging

Challenging, is the third part of ITALIC, a year-long course that explores the ways people make and encounter a wide range of artworks, including music and performance, the visual arts, literature, film and other media. How does art contest cultural, political, and social assumptions and values? How does it challenge expectations about its form, medium, or content? Why are some art works difficult? How can we tell when art becomes something else, such as propaganda or marketing? To address these questions we will read work by Michel Foucault, Laura Mulvey, Edward Said, Mikhail Bakhtin, and Buckminster Fuller, among others. We will have the unique opportunity to attend a performance by Meredith Monk, as well as other art experiences (TBD) in the Bay Area. The course continues to enrich its academic endeavors with art-making opportunities in section and in a two-week filmmaking practicum with Adam Tobin. The quarter, and the year, culminates in a three-day field trip to Los Angeles where we will attend a music and/or theatrical performance (TBD), visit the Getty Center, the Broad Art Museum, and Watts Towers, among other important art sites.

JAPAN 82N:Joys and Pains of Growing Up and Older in Japan

What do old and young people share in common? With a focus on Japan, a country with a large long-living population, this seminar spotlights older people's lives as a reflectiion of culture and society, history, and current social and personal changes. Through discussion of multidisciplinary studies on age, analysis of narratives, and films, we will gain a closer understanding of Japanese society and the multiple meanings of growing up and older. Students will also create a short video/audio profile of an older individual, and we will explore cross-cultural comparisons. Held in Knight Bldg. Rm. 201.

This class is structured around three motifs: love suicide (as a romantic ideal), female desire, and same-sex sexuality. Over the course of the quarter we will look at how these motifs are treated in the art and entertainment from three different moments of Japanese history: the Edo period (1615-1868), the modern period (1920-65), and the contemporary period (1965-present). We will start by focusing on the most traditional representations of these topics. Subsequently, we will consider how later artists and entertainers revisited the conventional treatments of these motifs, informing them with new meanings and social significance. We will devote particular attention to how this material comments upon issues of gender, sexuality, and human relationships in the context of Japan. Informing our perspective will be feminist and queer theories of reading and interpretation.

Translation lies at the heart of all intercultural exchange. This course introduces students to the specific ways in which translation has shaped the image of Japan in the West, the image of the West in Japan, and Japan's self-image in the modern period. What texts and concepts were translated by each side, how, and to what effect? No prior knowledge of Japanese language necessary.

JAPAN 148:Modern Japanese Narratives: Literature and Film (JAPAN 248)

Central issues in modern Japanese visual and written narrative. Focus is on competing views of modernity, war, and crises of individual and collective identity and responsibility. Directors and authors include Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Ozu, Ogai, Akutagawa, Tanizaki, Abe, and Oe.

| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-GlobalCom, WAY-ED

JEWISHST 4N:A World History of Genocide (HISTORY 4N)

Reviews the history of genocide from ancient times until the present. Defines genocide, both in legal and historical terms, and investigates its causes, consequences, and global dimensions. Issues of prevention, punishment, and interdiction. Main periods of concern are the ancient world, Spanish colonial conquest; early modern Asia; settler genocides in America, Australia, and Africa; the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust; genocide in communist societies; and late 20th century genocide.

Last offered: Winter 2015
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, WAY-ED, WAY-SI

JEWISHST 18N:Religion and Politics: Comparing Europe to the U.S. (RELIGST 18N)

Interdisciplinary and comparative. Historical, political, sociological, and religious studies approaches. The relationship between religion and politics as understood in the U.S. and Europe. How this relationship has become tense both because of the rise of Islam as a public religion in Europe and the rising influence of religious groups in public culture. Different understandings and definitions of the separation of church and state in Western democratic cultures, and differing notions of the public sphere. Case studies to investigate the nature of public conflicts, what issues lead to conflict, and why. Why has the head covering of Muslim women become politicized in Europe? What are the arguments surrounding the Cordoba House, known as the Ground Zero Mosque, and how does this conflict compare to controversies about recent constructions of mosques in Europe? Resources include media, documentaries, and scholarly literature.

JEWISHST 85B:Jews in the Contemporary World: The Jewish Present and Past in Film, Television and Popular Culture (CSRE 85B, HISTORY 85B, REES 85B)

(Same as
HISTORY 185B. History majors and others taking 5 units, register for 185B.) This course explores the full expanse of Jewish life today and in the recent past. The inner workings of religious faith, the content of Jewish identify shorn of belief, the interplay between Jewish powerlessness and influence, the myth and reality of Jewish genius, the continued pertinence of antisemitism, the rhythms of Jewish economic life ¿ all these will be examined in weekly lectures, classroom discussion, and with the use of a widely diverse range of readings, films, and other material. Explored in depth will the ideas and practices of Zionism, the content of contemporary secularism and religious Orthodoxy, the impact Holocaust, the continued crisis facing Israel and the Palestinians. Who is to be considered Jewish, in any event, especially since so many of the best known (Spinoza, Freud, Marx) have had little if anything to do with Jewish life with their relationships to it indifferent, even hostile?